


Dissolution

by Pouler (poulerslashes)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 08:21:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2540900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poulerslashes/pseuds/Pouler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The team captain reels in the wake of their loss against Dateko. But his vice-captain won't let him stay down very long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dissolution

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to my lovely friend bestingheroes for helping it be presentable.
> 
> And thank you for reading!
> 
> Dissolution: noun.  
> (1) the act of officially ending a marriage, organization, agreement, etc.  
> (2) the process of making something slowly end or disappear  
> (3) Chemistry. the process by which a solute forms a solution in a solvent; becoming a homogeneous mixture composed of only one phase.

 

There was a posting on the door of the gym. "Karasuno VBC cancelled for the remainder of the week." It was in Takeda's hand but Suga knew who had written it. A slow sort of dread had been building in his stomach since lunch hour, when Takeda had taken Daichi out of class, and Daichi came back in with a pinched look on his face. Not angry. Not frustrated. Something worse.

 

Suga's first plan had been to take Daichi aside as soon as school dismissed, but Daichi had somehow slipped him – when Suga had grabbed his bag and turned to catch him before heading out to the gym, he had looked up and found Daichi missing.

 

It was true that Daichi had been quiet and distant since their defeat against Dateko two days earlier. Yesterday's practice had been pretty stilted. Everyone felt the loss hard – even worse with Asahi skipping, and Nishinoya a taut bundle of furious betrayal. Their fight had been unsettling, but Suga wanted to believe that all it would take was a few days – a few weeks tops, with the new school year starting and then Inter-High soon after – and then they could start the process of stumbling back together again, the long slog to cohesion.

 

Now Suga stood outside the gym door, fiddling with the strap of his bag and worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. The door was locked, the gym dark inside. Suga had a key, but he knew Daichi would not be there.

 

"Suga-san!" It was Tanaka approaching from behind. Suga turned toward him slightly. He knew his smile was forced, but he couldn't seem to fix it. Tanaka didn't seem to mind too much; they'd all been a bit more dour than usual.

 

"What the heck is goin' on?" Tanaka asked him. The early spring air had taken a turn back toward winter. Their breath condensed in the cold air between them. Suga knew they'd have to either return to the school or go inside the gym – neither of them had dressed properly for being outside, both expecting only the short walk between the two buildings.

 

"I'm not sure," Suga said with affected cheer. "I think Daichi's a little under the weather." Tanaka came to stand beside him.

 

Tanaka looked silently at the posting on the door of the gym. "Rest of the week? More than a little, I bet," he said. His breath came out in white little puffs and he hugged his arms to his body.

 

"Let's go back in," Suga said, as he clapped Tanaka on the shoulder. "I'll run by Daichi's house on the way home and check in on him. I'm sure we can practice tomorrow without him."

 

But Tanaka looked pensive. "Suga-san, I looked for Noya-san at lunch," he said.

 

Suga paused.

 

"I was gonna bring him some of my lunch, I had some things he liked, you know?" Tanaka continued. "And I thought, he was so down yesterday. He wasn't in his class, but I didn't think about it much. You know how he is sometimes."

 

Suga shoved his hands in his pockets. Daichi had been called out at lunch.

 

"So I went to grab him just now, to walk with him, and one of his classmates said he never came back after lunch."

 

Suga's breath felt like tiny glass shards in his chest. The air on his face was too cold. "Daichi was called out at lunch," he said.

 

Tanaka frowned with his whole face. His eyebrows were low and heavy over his sharp eyes. "The rumor is there was a big fight in front of the dean's office." There was a beat of silence, then – "You don't think– "

 

"I'll talk to Daichi," Suga said abruptly. "I'll figure it out." He forced himself to smile again, nudged Tanaka with his elbow. "It's freezing out here. Let's go inside. It'll be alright tomorrow."

 

~

 

The clouds were low and heavy, gray with promise. Suga wondered if it might snow. March was pretty late, but it had happened before. He burrowed his face into his scarf and picked up his pace.

 

He did not live as close to the school as Daichi did, but still close enough to walk most days. In fact, he walked _with_ Daichi most days, and it wasn't like Daichi to run off without him. It also wasn't like him to cancel practice without a word to anyone, and Suga was – hell, he was worried. He was really _worried_. He'd tried to put on a brave face for Tanaka with limited success, but now he felt a tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with the chilly air or the quickness of his gait.

 

Yesterday Daichi had been so confident – even after the mess between Asahi and Nishinoya, even after Suga picked up the broken pieces of the mop and stared at the ragged ends, felt the jaggedness inside his own heart and wondered how he could fit it back together again. Daichi hadn't lapsed into platitudes or half-truths, hadn't tried to couch their loss in flowery language. They all needed to work harder. "All we can do is keep practicing," he had said. Daichi always faced everything head on. So why now... ?

 

Halfway along the route to Daichi's house, Suga stopped abruptly. He turned around and went back a few blocks, then turned off the road onto a small sidepath between two buildings. He came out into an alleyway that ran between a row of houses and a block of shops. The alley led down a hill toward an open green slope and a rainwater canal beyond. There was a concrete footbridge across the canal, not much to look at, but under the bridge, above the matted earth close to the edge of the canal, there was a nice sturdy overhang which was dry underneath when the weather held. That was where Suga suspected Daichi might hide – and that was where he found him, sitting in a tight ball with his elbows tucked in and his face red with cold.

 

"Daichi," he breathed heavily, "what are you doing?"

 

Daichi turned his face to the side and stared at the dry canal. "What does it look like I'm doing?"  
  
Suga huffed. White mist gathered in front of his face and dissipated quickly. "It looks like you're sulking. And trying to freeze to death."

 

"Even I deserve to sulk once in awhile," Daichi mumbled at the ground.

 

"And freeze?"

 

"I'll freeze if I want," he said.

 

"Well." Suga set down his bag and sat on the ground beside Daichi. He brought his knees up and hugged them tightly. "It's not like you to be so childish."

 

Daichi didn't say anything to that. He didn't look anywhere near Suga, simply hunched with his legs pulled up and his arms tucked in, his hands fisted together between his knees. Suga took in his red nose and chapped lips. At least he was wearing a knit cap and gloves.

 

"You idiot," Suga said mildly, and he looped an arm around Daichi's shoulders.

 

Daichi didn't soften. He didn't sigh or sag or even bristle as he had in the past when Suga had tried to lance the boil of his frustration. This time he was totally unmoved, stiff and unyielding as the earth itself.

 

"Daichi," Suga said, and he dropped his hand from Daichi's shoulder to rest at the center of his back. "What's wrong with you?"

 

"Asahi quit."

 

_That_ made Suga pause. "No, he didn't," he said finally.

 

"He did."

 

Suga shook his head. "No, you're mistaken. He wouldn't – I mean, he was pretty shook up after that loss, but – we all were, and he wouldn't, he wouldn't just leave us."

 

Daichi looked at him then, and Suga saw the cold hurt on his face, the bitterness sewn into the creased space between his dark eyebrows. "He told me himself."

 

Suga let his gaze slip out over the dry canal. A small levee lifted the earth up to reach the other side of the bridge, and from there he saw the roofs of houses peaking beyond that rise. "I don't understand," he said. "When did you talk to him?" Asahi had skipped practice the day before, and they'd had no morning practice since the last match. That left – "Daichi, why did you get pulled out at lunch?"

 

"Nishinoya's been suspended."

 

" _Suspended?_ " Suga grabbed Daichi's shoulder and turned him so sharply that Daichi had to stick out an arm to keep his balance. "Daichi!"

 

Daichi continued. "They got in a fight in front of the dean. Apparently Nishinoya pushed him."  
  
"He pushed Asahi?"

 

"No, the dean."

 

Suga let that piece of information sink in. "Nishinoya pushed _the dean_?" Nishinoya was... excitable. But Suga had never seen him put a hand on someone else unprovoked – at least, not before yesterday.

 

"That's what I said, isn't it?" Daichi tried to shrug him off but Suga held on. "The administration took them to Takeda first. I guess they figured out the fight was over volleyball, and he's our advisor. Takeda thought I could talk some sense into them and so he pulled me out. But... it was." Daichi scrubbed at his face. "It was useless."  
  


"What happened?"

 

"Takeda managed to talk Nishinoya's suspension down to a week. But no club activities for a month."

  
"What did Nishinoya say?"  
  
"God, Suga. He didn't even say anything. He didn't speak once during the entire thing. I don't think I heard him make a sound at all."

 

"...and Asahi?"

 

Daichi stood up abruptly, tearing himself from Suga's hand. "Damnit, Sugawara, do you want me to give you the entire play-by-play?" He was taking big gulping breaths of air and exhaling hard – the air around him fogged dramatically. He flung an arm out wide. "It was awful, alright? It was entirely awful." Daichi turned his back to Suga and took a couple steps away. "After the meeting they called Nishinoya's dad to come escort him home, and I had the pleasure of talking to Asahi for all of thirty seconds before they sent us back to class. Do you know what he told me?"

 

Suga had a terrible feeling in his stomach, like realizing at the top of a lift-hill that there was no real desire to ride the rollercoaster after all. Still, he had to take the drop. "What did he say?"

 

" _Nothing_." Daichi spat the word as though it tasted vile. Maybe it had. "He said nothing. He just stood there like a kicked puppy. So I asked him, 'Are you off the team for good?' And he." Daichi fisted his hands together. "That gutless coward just nodded. He wouldn't even look at me. So I told him we didn't need anyone who quit like that over one lost match."

 

"Oh, Daichi."

 

Daichi looked over his shoulder, and Suga saw his eyes blazing. "Don't you 'Oh, Daichi' me. You didn't see him."

 

"You know that you have to be gentler with him," Suga said, "he's always been like that." Suga paused a moment, then added, "I'll talk to him. He has to know it was my fault as much as it was his. I'll tell him–"

 

"I don't care anymore," Daichi cut in, and Suga closed his mouth so quickly that his teeth clicked together.

 

"You... don't care," he echoed after a beat of silence.

 

"What does it matter anymore? Without our ace or our libero – what's it even matter? What's the point of holding practice, of training? We lost half our first years! We don't even have a proper coach! How are we supposed to have a team like this?"

 

Suga stood slowly. He brushed himself off deliberately, taking his time with it. "Daichi," he said quietly, "I think you'd better stop talking."

 

Daichi turned toward him. "Suga–"

 

"No." Suga knew his voice was sharp. He was glad for it. He wouldn't have been able to remove the darkness from his voice even if he had wanted to. "I don't want to hear anything else." Anger welled up inside him, white-hot, like the knob on a furnace suddenly flipped to high. "I don't even know who I'm talking to right now."

 

Daichi took a step back in the face of his sudden fury. "Suga," he said again, plaintatively, "I'm just–"

 

"Daichi," he cut in, "weren't you the one who said we all needed to practice more as a team? You said that _yesterday_. And now you're just what. You're tired? Upset? " Suga fisted his hands at his sides. "Well, so am I. But you know what? I'm not the _captain._ "

 

Daichi gave him a dark look. "Well, maybe you should be the captain then."

 

" _Daichi_ ," Suga said, his tone dangerous, and Daichi was quiet.

 

The wind kicked up, but they were sheltered by the overhang. A few leaves clattered by through the dry canal, the sound sharp and scattered. Suga softened slightly, his anger cooling to a simmer.

 

"Daichi," Suga said again, "we've been friends awhile. Since first year, right?"

 

"Since the first day of volleyball practice, when you fell on me and tore my shirt in half." Daichi managed a slight smile at the memory.

 

"It's not my fault that you present such a wide profile," Suga insisted. "And I was knocked over, for the record."

 

"Still don't understand why you had to grab my shirt."

 

Suga looked at the ground and smiled wanly. "In all the time I've known you, you've always said, 'We're going to nationals, we're going to nationals.' Are you telling me now that you've given up on it?"

 

Daichi didn't say anything to that.

 

"The thing is, let's be honest here," Suga continued, "so what if we lost a game? So what if half of the first years didn't come back? So what if Asahi quit the team?" He took a step forward, hands fisted in front of him, his voice rising to a shout. "Nishinoya will be back. Tanaka is still with us. Enough first-years returned to fill up the roster, and we still have a setter and a captain! Daichi, we still have a _team_. "

 

Daichi was looking at him as though he had never seen him before. Suga continued, "And we still have time! We'll be third years in a month – and who knows what will happen once the new year starts – remember all the talent we saw at the middle school tournament? Maybe we'll even get some of those kids! Daichi, we can run the team how we want now – there's still Inter-High and – we can still make it to nationals if you believe we can! But if you're telling me that–" He cut off abruptly and swallowed hard. "If you're telling me that you don't believe in us anymore, then I..." Suga shook his head. "Then maybe I was wrong about you from the start."

 

Daichi looked as though he had been struck. "Suga," he said, "of course I still believe in you." He added, "In all of you," almost as an afterthought.

 

"Then, what?" Suga swept his hands out wide. "Why are you saying these things?"

 

"Suga, I–" Daichi clenched his fists tightly. "What if _I'm_ the failure? I'm no coach – I'm barely a proper captain." His face was painted with agony, his voice broken. "What if this mess with Nishinoya and Asahi was _my_ fault? What if the team just falls apart with me in charge?"

 

Suga exhaled slowly, filling the air between them with pale mist. "Oh, Daichi," he said gently. Daichi looked pitiful – his shoulders slumped, his face almost gray. He must have carried the worry around with him for a long time. Suga closed the distance between them.

 

He socked Daichi as hard as he could right in the bicep.

 

"Ow!" Daichi yelped. He grabbed his arm and backed away a step. "What the hell!"

 

"Didn't you tell me you'd hit me if I said it was my fault?"

 

"I did, but..." Daichi rubbed his arm with a grimace. The color was coming back to his cheeks. "I don't think I'd have hit you that hard."

 

Suga grinned at him. "It's because you're too soft on me."

 

"Maybe I am!" Daichi said, and he took off his gloves and jumped at Suga.

 

Suga's laughter echoed off the bridge and canal as Daichi grabbed him and tried to shove cold fingers inside his scarf on his neck. "Stop!" he shouted. Suga shoved a hand against his face and tried to push him away, but Daichi grabbed his wrist. He pulled Suga's hand down, then wrapped his free arm around Suga's waist and yanked hard to pull him into a fierce hug. Suga jumped as Daichi's cold face tucked into his scarf, close to his neck.

 

He could feel Daichi's warm breath against the sensitive skin there, the desperate way Daichi's fingers twisted into his jacket. After a moment – only a moment – Suga wrapped his arms around Daichi's shoulders and hugged him back with equal intensity. He turned his face into Daichi's musty old knit cap, the smell of it mixing with the soft clean scent of his shampoo. Suga could feel an agony swelling up inside him; it lodged somewhere behind his solar plexus like a bad meal vying for escape. He swallowed hard against the sudden lump in his throat – and if he felt a curious dampness against his neck, where Daichi's eyelashes fluttered against his skin – well, he did not say so.

 

The air was getting colder but he felt hot all over – the top of his head prickled beneath his hat and his breath steamed beside Daichi's ear. He could feel the hard scratch of Daichi's days-worth of stubble against his skin. One of Daichi's hands slipped up the center of his back to cup the nape of his neck. Suga shivered for entirely unexplainable reasons.

 

"Daichi," he murmured.

 

"I'm sorry," Daichi said. "I'm sorry I'm such an idiot."

 

"You're not," Suga said softly, and in a fit of bravery he let himself touch his mouth to the skin behind Daichi's ear. It wasn't a kiss, only a gentle press as he murmured, "most of the time."

 

Daichi exhaled in a huff of laughter. He pulled back enough that Suga could look at his face. His eyes were red-rimmed, but they were dry. Suga noted the fact with no small amount of relief.

 

"I'm better with you around," Daichi admitted, and Suga felt his face heat.

 

" _Now_ you're being an idiot," Suga said. He put his hand back on Daichi's face and shoved him away.

 

"Sorry!" Daichi said again, but he was grinning. He looked a lot more like himself, and Suga felt the pain inside his ribcage ease.

 

"Come on, it's freezing!" he said. "Let's go get a hot drink at the shop."

 

"Alright," Daichi said. "You're buying?"

 

"After I came all the way out here to haul you back to reality? I don't think so."

 

"Okay, fair enough," Daichi said. His cheeks were pink. Suga told himself it was from the cold.

 

They collected their bags and climbed up from under the bridge. Suga's foot slipped once on the hard slope, but Daichi caught his hand and kept him upright. He held it until they were on level ground, and Suga let him.

 

The light was starting to pale as the afternoon trended toward evening. The equinox was a few weeks out yet, and the days still felt short. The dark clouds were low and ominous. "Do you think it will snow?" Suga asked.

 

"No," Daichi returned. His steps stilled, and Suga matched him. The look that Daichi gave him felt like a light catching hold inside his chest. Daichi reached forward, and Suga's heart beat a little faster. He pulled something off Suga's hat. When he held it up, Suga could see that it was a tiny, unblossomed leafbud. Daichi rolled it between his fingers with wistful smile. "I think it feels like spring."


End file.
